The Last Day: Another Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Mini-Episode

This is now my thirteenth post and I wouldn’t be surprised if I turned into The Valeyard at this point. All right, before I go on just watch this video. Please watch it.

Are you done?

All right. I came across this today from Jenna-Louise Coleman’s Facebook profile. At first, it was a broken link until she linked to it from another Doctor Who Profile. Now, we have seen a lot of trailers and one other mini-episode “The Night of The Doctor.” So when I came across this, I felt like the soldier from whose perspective we are viewing the situation.

I will admit, I didn’t know who these soldiers were, or even what episode this was even going to be. It was like seeing that small little speck, you know? You are that soldier and you are looking for a bird or some kind of avian in the sky.

But then you realize This. Is. Gallifrey.

And then you look at the title to this mini-episode, Steven Moffat’s “The Last Day,” you as the viewer already know where this is going.

That’s not a bird.

At first, in a manner not unlike the soldier and his, or her, fellows I wondered if this was real: if Coleman wasn’t linking us to an especially zealous fan-made video about The Last Great Time War. But as I went online, I saw a whole slew of links to this one video  and, by the time I got to Doctor Who TV I knew that this was legitimate. There were some other indications too for more nuanced viewers of the series. For instance, G33kpr0n’s editor Rob pointed out that the soldiers of Gallifrey are all wearing The Seal of Rassilon on their armour. It goes to show you that even now I still have a lot to learn as a geek which, frankly, is a whole load of awesomesauce.

Now I am just going to go into some conjecture of my own. I’m guessing that the helmets the soldiers (who may have been recruited from the Chancellery Guard or the non-Time Lord Gallifreyan citizenry) are wearing to access the memories of dead soldiers are extensions or an adaptation of The Matrix (which is a super-computer that, among other things, contains the memories of deceased Time Lords and stores information to predict the future, hence the soldier’s insistence that what “you” are seeing is “not a premonition”). It would be useful to store all of this information to transfer to the next mind of the newest soldier, you, for your very first day guarding the planet of Gallifrey.

Unfortunately, as you see through this unique second-person perspective of the War that also manages to humanize the Time Lords and their army while showing just how Frontline Combat they have become, you realize that you are not viewing a bird or even a flock of birds.

It’s a murder of Daleks.

And while there is “The Night of The Doctor,” “The Day of The Doctor,” and what should have been your first day on the job guarding your home world ultimately becomes your “Last Day”: The Last Day of Gallifrey.